Shen. Valley wins lawsuit against state; funding system ruled unconstitutional
SHENANDOAH – The Commonwealth’s education funding system was ruled unconstitutional today by Commonwealth Court President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, following a lawsuit involving the Shenandoah Valley School District.
Shenandoah was one of six school districts from across the Commonwealth which sued the state in 2014 to address funding inequities allegedly caused by the state, saying the state is not investing enough, particularly in the lower-wealth school districts across the Commonwealth and, as a result, are not meeting their constitutional duties.”
“Petitioners contend that low-wealth districts, which frequently serve higher need students, are not on a level playing field with higher-wealth districts, such that the current funding system violates equal protection principles,” Cohn Jubelirer wrote in today’s opinion.
Shenandoah Valley was joined by the Panther Valley School District, The School District of Lancaster, Greater Johnstown School District in Cambria County, Wilkes-Barre Area School District, and William Penn School District in Delaware County, as well as parents, the Association of Rural and Small Schools, and the NAACP of Pennsylvania. The schools filed suit against the Department of Education and various state officials.
In today’s opinion, Cohn Jubelirer found that the Commonwealth has “not fulfilled their obligations to all children under the Education Clause in violation of the rights of Petitioners.”
She said education “is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution to all school-age children residing in the Commonwealth” and that the constitution imposes an obligation upon the Commonwealth “to provide a system of public education that does not discriminate against students based on the level of income and value of taxable property in their school districts.”
“Students who reside in school districts with low property values and incomes are deprived of the same opportunities and resources as students who reside in school districts with high property values and incomes,” the judge wrote. “The disparity among school districts with high property values and incomes and school districts with low property values and incomes is not justified by any compelling government interest nor is it rationally related to any legitimate government objective.”
“As a result of these disparities, Petitioners and students attending low-wealth districts are being deprived of equal protection of law,” Cohn Jubelirer concluded.
Superintendent Brian Waite testified before the court, noting that, for the 2020-21 school year, 75.44% of SV students were from low-income families, the 19th highest total in the state. Just over half the student population is Hispanic, and the number of English Language Learner had doubled since 2008. Twelve percent of students are ELL students, the 11th highest percentage in the state.
“They’re coming in at different grade levels, so students may come up, and the first time they’ve entered might be in 10th grade, 11th grade, or they could be in our 4-K program,” Waite told the court. “So there’s a variety of needs and a variety of levels not just within — not just across grade levels, but also within the grade levels.”
“We have poverty, which is a big challenge for us in our district. We have a high population of ELL learners, English language learners, in our district. We have a high population of students with special needs,” Waite told the court. “And embedded in the students with special needs, we have a good number of students that I term as ‘low-incident” students, which means. . . they are in classes like Autistic Support[.]”
Shenandoah Valley ranks 484th of 499 in median income and is described as a “low-wealth, high-need, high-effort, low-spending district.”
“According to the Fair Funding Formula, Shenandoah Valley has the 11th highest need student population in the Commonwealth. Putting its need and wealth together, the district’s local capacity per weighted student ranks 496th out of 499 districts,” the opinion states. “Shenandoah Valley’s need, combined with its lack of wealth, results in its rank of 491st in the Commonwealth based on current expenditures per weighted student.”
“Shenandoah Valley cannot tax its way to sufficient funding. As measured by equalized mills, Shenandoah’s tax rate ranks first in Schuylkill County and 23rd in the Commonwealth,” the opinion continued. Shenandoah Valley’s tax rate is actually second in the county at 56.975 mills. First is Panther Valley, which serves Coaldale borough, at 60.69 mills.
For 2021-22, Shenandoah Valley anticipated receiving $18,745,269 in revenue — $5.1 Million in local funding, $12.7 Million, and $898,000 in federal funding.
Regarding teachers, Shenandoah Valley had 82 in 2020-21 and, of 420 teacher evaluations performed between 2014 and 2019, only one teacher was rated as needing improvement, but was still rated as satisfactory. Of the remaining ratings, 391 were proficient, and 28 were distinguished.
During Waite’s tenure, only two were rated unsatisfactory and both were removed from their positions due to performance.
As of the 2020-21 school year, SV teachers had an average of 15 years experience, and had taught at Shenandoah for 12.8 years.
Teachers at SV made an average of $55.416.73, nearly $10,000 higher than the average teacher’s salary in 2012-13, and teachers make $17,071 more than the median household income in the district, which is $38,346.
Nearly a quarter of the district’s teaching staff are dedicated to special education (17) or ELL (4).
ELL teachers face “huge workloads” of “approximately 35 students” and “have neither the time nor ability to collaborate with regular classroom teachers, which is important not only for ELL students’ language development but also so they can learn in other classes with complex vocabularies, such as biology.”
Waite told the court that “the ability to provide [ELL students] programming with fidelity is…severely impeded because the number of students that have increased…is more than double. So we have situations where students should be getting two hours of instruction and may not.”
Regular education teachers are also tasked with high workloads, having to teach multiple classes to different students at the same time. Ten cases currently exist, Waite told the court.
In one case, a music teacher instructs seventh graders on introductory music while simultaneously teaching AP music theory, and an English teacher teachers two different grade levels working in different content areas at the same time.
“Even math teachers have been tasked with teaching multiple courses to different students within a single classroom — one teacher teachers Algebra 2 and geometry, and another has to teach Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and consumer math in the same class,” according to the court document.
Waite also told the court that the student has a social worker-behavior interventionist on staff, “who has helped students develop social skills and re-integrate into the school community.”
Half that staffer’s time is spent as a social worker, and half as a behavioral interventionist for district special needs students in both the elementary and high school, “which is not sufficient to help all the students who need his services.”
Waite said he’s seen students make strides with the staffer’s services but “he lacks sufficient behavior interventionists to service all students who need those services.”
He added that the district has two full-time counselors, one for each building, and that, since the high school counselor is responsible for the entire building “she has very, very limited time working with kids.”
The district also lacks a librarian and has one truancy officer who, due to her caseload, does not have time to do home visits.
In his testimony, Waite described his role as being someone who creates “collateral damage” in “trying to provide opportunities for kids in [his] district” because “he can’t meet those needs.” He recounted a story from the past year where, to solve the problem of having only two teachers to cover over 60 pre-K students, he was forced to move a Title I reading specialist from their current role into a pre-K classroom. To address the gap that move created, he then had to assign the elementary school principal the responsibilities of that reading specialist, forcing one of his administrative staff to take on two separate jobs
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